The Vision Of Elena Silves
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Product Description
Product Description
In the Amazon city of Belen, in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, three old men sit on a bench. They sit in the square every day under the hot sun, remembering the women they loved and the world when it was a better place. One day, a woman hurries past their bench whom all have reason to remember - Elena Silves, the girl with eyes as blue as the sky who once saw a vision and has been incarcerated by the Church authorities in a convent high in the Andes ever since. But the old men remember something else. They remember that Elena had been in love at the time with Gabriel, a student revolutionary who became the most wanted man in Belen. "Written with precision, clarity and rare beauty - alongside Salman Rushdie and the late Bruce Chatwin, Shakespeare now joins the ranks of the New Exotics school" - Robert Carver, "New Statesman". "A story of love and insurrection brilliantly told - a remarkable debut - one of the best books about the continent written by an outsider" - "Sunday Times". "An Englishman's novel of magic realism, flavoured with the more traditional English spices such as thriller and tourchsong, and a touch of Anglo-Saxon irony - a fine literary novel, combining several traditions and genres of fiction" - "The Times". "A novel of action in the best tradition of Conrad and Greene - Love, violence, revolution and death - a denouement that is unexpected, shocking and brilliantly conceived - I closed the novel with both satisfaction and regret" - "Literary Review". ""The Vision of Elena Silves" is a terrific novel" - John Sutherland, "London Review of Books".
About the Author
Nicholas Shakespeare is the author of The Vision of Elena Silves (1989), winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, The High Flyer, for which he was nominated for the Grants list in 1993 and The Dancer Upstairs which was chosen by the American Libraries Association as the best novel of 1997. In 1999 his biography, Bruce Chatwin was published to great critical acclaim.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read Nicholas Shakespeare's novel "Snowleg" which I loved, I bought "The Vision" which I found rather complicated at first reading - and decided it wasn't a novel for a few minutes here and there, but deserved some attention and serious reading time. It is a beautiful and exotic love story, about Elena and Gabriel, based in South America; scenery, mystery and pace of life jump from every page. The reminiscences of three old men on a bench contrast with modern life, which as we all know - "just isn't what it used to be!"
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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1 review
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Readable riffs via Greene & Garcia Marquez
10 Nov 2004
Format:Paperback
Shakespeare's dust jacket blurb mentions his stint pursuing guerrillas of the Shining Path in Peru as well as his (as of 1990) twenty-odd years spent in Latin America. Clearly, the influence of Graham Greene colors Shakespeare's characters such as the alcoholic priest, the effete bishop, the corrupted policeman, and the "palanca" prisoner. And, the example of Garcia Marquez' non-magical realism shows in the portrayals of the three old men on the bench who serve as a chorus on the events rather confusingly and slowly spread out in the chronology of a novel that jumps from 1965 to 1983 to 1986 in the main parts and back to the earlier 20c in the backstory, very reminiscent of Latin American storytellers in its family saga of eccentrics and rogues.
In parts, the tale comes alive through the author's descriptions and word choices. In other places, it sags--especially in the end--and the tension brought by the real Sendero Luminoso to Peru drains from much of the narrative. By the end, you get the sense that the guerrillas are no more a national threat than the Weather Underground or Patty Hearst's SLA was to the U.S. However, I doubt that this was Shakespeare's intention in his effort to convey the drama of terrorism and those caught up in its convictions.
Extra credit for a mention of Jean Gerson, 15th century Catholic theologian, and the curious byways into Mariolatry. This subplot itself does reveal relevant consquences for the titular plot of the novel, although by the end this purportedly central symbol appears diminished and secondary among what has become, despite its rather short length, a too complicated and diffused plot.
(At least one figure here returns in his other novel about Peru and the Senderos, The Dancer Upstairs. Comparisons to Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta invited.)
In parts, the tale comes alive through the author's descriptions and word choices. In other places, it sags--especially in the end--and the tension brought by the real Sendero Luminoso to Peru drains from much of the narrative. By the end, you get the sense that the guerrillas are no more a national threat than the Weather Underground or Patty Hearst's SLA was to the U.S. However, I doubt that this was Shakespeare's intention in his effort to convey the drama of terrorism and those caught up in its convictions.
Extra credit for a mention of Jean Gerson, 15th century Catholic theologian, and the curious byways into Mariolatry. This subplot itself does reveal relevant consquences for the titular plot of the novel, although by the end this purportedly central symbol appears diminished and secondary among what has become, despite its rather short length, a too complicated and diffused plot.
(At least one figure here returns in his other novel about Peru and the Senderos, The Dancer Upstairs. Comparisons to Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta invited.)
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